I have a simpletech 500

Question

I have a simpletech 500 g external drive. I just had my main computer crash and I have hooked the drive up to my laptop to see what I can recover. My old laptop circa 2003 - won't read Resource CD so ....I have gone to auto recovery and restored folders but when I open them they are empty? Am I doing osmething worng? Maybe I didn't back up my stuff but it shows on the simple hard drive that I have 18,000 files and I only have 150 G left on the drivfe - so where are my files? Help